7 Days Plot Suggestion: World War Three!
Timothy Bruening
attack (as nearly happened in January 1995), and launches its missiles
at the U.S. Parker is hastily packed into the time machine and
launched, but a Russian H-bomb explodes near the Backstep
Installation, knocking the time machine centuries into the future,
allowing the radiation from the accidential nuclear war to die down.
Parker happens to land near a high tech enclave which somehow survived
the war, the enclave repairs and refuels the time machine, and Parker
is sent back in time to a week before the war, where he prevents the
war.
Gharlane of Eddore
Gee, how clever you are, to insure that this particular plot scenario
will never be used on the show, by publishing it on the Net.
Hasn't anyone ever *explained* to you about "story ideas?"
Now their legal department won't let them use that scenario, or one
even similar to it. Nice going.
Phil Fraering
Everyone says this, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is still true.
A great deal of writers of written SF hang around on rec.arts.sf.written,
but they don't seem bound by the same sort of phobia concerning story
idea suggestions that people like JMS are.
What gives?
--
"I see a great hand, reaching out of the stars. Phil Fraering
The hand is your hand. And I hear sounds. The p...@globalreach.net
sounds of billions of people calling your name." /Will work for *tape*/
"My followers?" "Your victims."
James C. Ellis
>
> ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes:
> >
> > Gee, how clever you are, to insure that this particular plot scenario
> > will never be used on the show, by publishing it on the Net.
>
>
> A great deal of writers of written SF hang around on rec.arts.sf.written,
> but they don't seem bound by the same sort of phobia concerning story
> idea suggestions that people like JMS are.
>
> What gives?
The sheer amount of such speculation would play a large role, I would
imagine. In rec.arts.sf.written I seldom see complete story ideas
proposed for the next Honor Harrington book (f'rinstance), while it is
pretty common in the media groups to see someone say, "it would be kewl
if...".
(Another factor is probably the suit involvement. Day-to-day contact
with network execs and their paranoid legal watchdogs cannot be good for
one's mental health...)
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
John Schilling
>ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes:
>> Hasn't anyone ever *explained* to you about "story ideas?"
>>
>> Now their legal department won't let them use that scenario, or one
>> even similar to it. Nice going.
>Everyone says this, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is still true.
>A great deal of writers of written SF hang around on rec.arts.sf.written,
>but they don't seem bound by the same sort of phobia concerning story
>idea suggestions that people like JMS are.
>What gives?
Well, there's a lot less money involved in writing books than in producing
a TV series, which could have a lot to do with it. Less people at each
end of the process as well, and no standing armies of lawyers. I rather
doubt the cash flow associated with a mid-list paperback SF novel is
going to attract much in the way of nuisance lawsuits, nor is a midlist
SF paperback likely to even be noticed by the sort of people who file
nuisance lawsuits in the first place.
I'd imagine the kind of author who even occasionally gets their works on
the (overall, not genre) bestseller lists, faces the same liability problems
as a TV producer. But, to the extent that the SF field has such authors,
they aren't the ones who show up in rasfw.
--
*John Schilling * "You can have Peace, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * or you can have Freedom. *
*University of Southern California * Don't ever count on having both *
*Aerospace Engineering Department * at the same time." *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * - Robert A. Heinlein *
*(213)-740-5311 or 747-2527 * Finger for PGP public key *
Gharlane of Eddore
In <87pva4d0...@globalreach.net>
Phil Fraering <p...@globalreach.net> writes:
>
> Everyone says this, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is still true.
>
> A great deal of writers of written SF hang around on rec.arts.sf.written,
> but they don't seem bound by the same sort of phobia concerning story
> idea suggestions that people like JMS are.
>
> What gives?
>
It has to do with lawsuits, and with the U.S. court system's general
ignorance of art, literature, and "intellectual property."
You know, I know, and every writer and scriptwriter worth his salt
knows, that a "story idea" is VALUE-FREE. It is *WORTHLESS* until
someone has written it into saleable material, script, novel, or format.
It is the work of having made it into saleable material that creates
the value, *NOT* the "idea" itself.
Most basic "story ideas" were beaten to death long before Shakespeare
began recycling them; *however*, overt and callous appropriation of
other folks' work in the form of developed characters, scenaria, or
series formats ( think of the "DOORWAYS"/"SLIDERS" controversy, or
the "BABYLON 5"/"DEEP SPACE NINE" situation ) happens often enough
that there are a good many people who are willing to institute legal
action. ( Are you old enough to remember how one TV network cooked
up "THE ADDAMS FAMILY" and another network went into panic mode and
came up with "THE MUNSTERS" for the same season? or how one network
did "CAPTAIN NICE," and another did "MISTER TERRIFIC?" ) This is the
Way Of Hollywood; if someone else is doing something, it must be worth
doing, so Let's Do It First And Get It Released First, And Get All
The Money. Since the industry is filled with overt and proveable
rips, there are a great many parasites who cluster around and feed
off the legal fallout from such situations.
The PROBLEM is that there are a great many people who are either such
fools that they honestly believe they came up with a certain story,
or are such callous and venal parasites that they're willing to sue
when they know they have no rights in the matter.....
When you file against a TV series in production, an operation where
the entire production staff may be working fourteen and sixteen hour
days trying to pull the show out of the sewer long enough to get it
renewed, you create a situation where some or all of the production
staff might have to appear in court, and hang around for the full
length of a trial; you create a situation where a court order can
halt production pending outcome of the trial. A couple of weeks
of downtime can *literally* result in the death of a TV series, if
it happens at the wrong time.
This results in a situation where studio legal departments ORDER their
various production staffs to never ever look at a submission from anyone
who's not either invited, or submitting through a reputable agent, just
to avoid the potential of some housewife from Keokuk Iowa suing a
production entity over a script of hers that was rejected, but which
she thinks was produced anyway. The vast majority of amateur and
"spec" scripts that come in are simply unshootable, or recyclings of
classic schticks that everyone's been seeing for decades. They're
not WORTH stealing..... besides, on the rare occasions when something
good *does* show up, it's easier and cheaper to just shell out "Story
Rights" money, and pay a staffer to do the actual shooting script.
Admitted, once in a blue moon, something does get swiped... but these
cases are in the huge minority. ( Unless you're dealing with Paramount
or Universal or Warner Brothers, but I digress... *grin* I'm still
bemused by the fact that Fox was trying to fire up an action against
Universal about twenty years back, apparently based on "look and feel"
of the two space shows "BR" and "BSG," although there was also a bit of
"unfair competition" being talked about due to who was doing the FX,
and never mind that the first movie production of "BUCK ROGERS" dated
from four decades prior, and did *not* belong to Fox... )
The people over at Paramount are a huge exception in this area; "TREK"
will look at "spec" submissions, if they come in with a properly-executed
legal release form on top. As a result, they have a couple of warehouses
full of Trekkie "spec" submissions, and something for all their production
interns to do in their copious free time.
Note that anything posted on the Net is, under current copyright law,
the property of the poster. You don't even need to mark it "copyright."
Once it's posted, it's YOURS. (even if it's just a re-frame of a plot
you've seen on the late late show 2,763 times, it's YOURS.)
You can NOT assign rights to it, or release rights to it, over the Net.
Transfer of rights requires a written contract in multiple copy, signed
by both assignor and assignee, with each retaining a copy. ( In simplest
general terms, of course. )
Therefore, once you post something, and a TV show staffer sees it, or
can be proven to have just had the OPPORTUNITY to see it, and something
like it shows up on the series, there are grounds for suit. Quite
obviously, there is little chance of a judgement favoring the appellant,
but this still constitutes loss of personnel time and potential production
down-time, which can run into the millions in just a few days of court,
win or lose. ( Note that there are "writers" and "lawyers" who make a
living on nuisance suits of this nature, accepting out-of-court settlements
from production entities that are willing to be blackmailed just to save
hassle and court time; this is one of the more odoriferous variations
of the classic "protection racket." )
This is why posting "fan fiction" in public-accessible venues like "News"
topics is the act of kiddies who don't care what they might do to their
favorite TV series. The best way to handle "fan fiction" is by
limited-subscription mailing lists, so that it's possible to show the
list of addressees, and demonstrate that the production staff had no
access to the material.
The most raucously amusing variations of this occur when the "fan fiction"
is superior to the material being aired; the kiddies who were whacking
out "SinkQuest" fanfic did a lot of things that would have made fairly
respectable TV episodes, for example.
By and large, if your ideas and writing are so good that you need to
share them with the world, you should be working in your OWN universe,
and sending the results in to editors who get paid to look at unsolicited
submissions.... writing for free on the Net is the act of someone with
no self-confidence, someone who does not value his work enough to do it
in the expectation of compensation.
( Again, I note some major exceptions to this cavalier disposition of the
practice; there are some occasionally unutterably brilliant parodies
appearing on the Net, and some pretty good stuff is out there, largely
obscured by the surrounding plethora of rotting yak dung that poses as
"creative" effort on the Net. )
hig...@fnal.fnal.gov
ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) wrote:
> ( Are you old enough to remember how one TV network cooked
> up "THE ADDAMS FAMILY" and another network went into panic mode and
> came up with "THE MUNSTERS" for the same season? or how one network
> did "CAPTAIN NICE," and another did "MISTER TERRIFIC?" ) This is the
> Way Of Hollywood; if someone else is doing something, it must be worth
> doing, so Let's Do It First And Get It Released First, And Get All
> The Money.
Wasn't the cheesier *Rocketship X-M* rushed to the screens in 1950
to benefit from the publicity for the expensive and serious *Destination
Moon*?
See also my sigfile.
Psst: I've got an idea for a movie: | Bill Higgins
a colony of computer-generated ants | Fermi National
saves the world from a falling asteroid. | Accelerator Laboratory
Don't tell the competing producers! | hig...@fnal.fnal.gov
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Dan Tropea
>
> Concerning "story ideas,"
> This is why posting "fan fiction" in public-accessible venues like "News"
> topics is the act of kiddies who don't care what they might do to their
> favorite TV series. The best way to handle "fan fiction" is by
> limited-subscription mailing lists, so that it's possible to show the
> list of addressees, and demonstrate that the production staff had no
> access to the material.
>
Yes but Gharlene you do realize that there are many fanfic newsgroups.
I believe Star Trek has 3 or 4. Xena has at least 2. Granted there
seems to be very few stories posted.
> The most raucously amusing variations of this occur when the "fan fiction"
> is superior to the material being aired; the kiddies who were whacking
> out "SinkQuest" fanfic did a lot of things that would have made fairly
> respectable TV episodes, for example.
>
Gharlene there are many adults who write fanfic not just kiddies.
> By and large, if your ideas and writing are so good that you need to
> share them with the world, you should be working in your OWN universe,
> and sending the results in to editors who get paid to look at unsolicited
> submissions.... writing for free on the Net is the act of someone with
> no self-confidence, someone who does not value his work enough to do it
> in the expectation of compensation.
>
You do realize that you openned yourself up for flames with that last
line. :)
I would have to state that many people do it to share their enjoyment
of a show. And why not?
> ( Again, I note some major exceptions to this cavalier disposition of the
> practice; there are some occasionally unutterably brilliant parodies
> appearing on the Net, and some pretty good stuff is out there, largely
> obscured by the surrounding plethora of rotting yak dung that poses as
> "creative" effort on the Net. )
Yes but that yak dung to you maybe wonderful to the fanfic writer.
There are many fanfic stories that i dislike but i respect the fact
that the writer believed that they had an idea and wanted to share
it with everyone and if writing the story brings happiness to the
writer - i am ok with that.
BTW you do know that you set the follow-up to alt.dev.null. Don't
worry i fixed my header to be correct.
Steve Brinich
> This is why posting "fan fiction" in public-accessible venues like
> "News" topics is the act of kiddies
...who have matured just enough to get past the "it would be rilly
kewl to set my Followup-To: line to alt.dev.null heh heh HEH heh...."
stage.
--
Steve Brinich <ste...@radix.net> If the government wants us
http://www.radix.net/~steveb to respect the law
89B992BBE67F7B2F64FDF2EA14374C3E it should set a better example
Gharlane of Eddore
>
> Concerning "story ideas,"
> topics is the act of kiddies who don't care what they might do to their
> favorite TV series. The best way to handle "fan fiction" is by
> limited-subscription mailing lists, so that it's possible to show the
> list of addressees, and demonstrate that the production staff had no
> access to the material.
>
Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
>
> Yes but Gharlene you do realize that there are many fanfic newsgroups.
> I believe Star Trek has 3 or 4. Xena has at least 2. Granted there
> seems to be very few stories posted.
>
I see. "Everyone does it" makes it sensible? By this logic,
ax murder is permissible, since lots of folks do it.
Note that Paramount largely ignored the "fan fiction" people for a
decade or so, and then discovered when they put "TREK" back into
production that they couldn't do a tremendous quantity of material
for fear of lawsuit vulnerability; in fact, Paramount Legal sent over
a memo to Goddenberry pointing out that so many "Vulcan" stories had
been "fanficced" that it probably wasn't worth his time to try to come
up with anything that he could do safely. This is one of the major
reasons you saw so little of Vulcan and Vulcans in TNG. The idiots at
Paramount are *still* fighting occasional rear-guard actions to assert
ownership of various copyrights and trademarks they didn't defend
properly when it appeared to them that "TREK" had no value. Toleration
of fanfic constitutes a sort of defacto acknowledgement that they're
abandoning rights to certain things, and there have been one or two
cases where they had to go to a lot of hassle to establish ownership
rights on their own corporate property.
One of the funniest recent ones was an Asian knife-maker that was
making stainless-steel knives with pop-out guards, calling it the
"Bird of Prey," and packaging it in a box with a Klingon symbol
on it. They had to change the name of the knife, and re-arrange
the elements of the symbol to "avoid confusion with trademarked
Paramount properties."
The whole point of legal fumblydiddles is to STAY OUT OF COURT unless
you have a good chance of winning something that's worth a lot more
than your time and aggravation. Do you have any idea how much "fanfic"
is worthy of a court defense, especially since it's largely unpublishable?
In other words, asymptotic zero.
Incidentally, fanfic was part of the discussion over the so-called
"Communications Decency Act" that was passed by our socialist-
authoritarian Congress, and signed into law by our constitution-hating
"president." A number of Congresscritters who'd been well-funded by
the entertainment industry saw a chance to establish more control over
things that were an Inconvenience to their owners. Thus, was mass
violation of U.S. copyright law used as one of the coffin nails in the
attempt to slice and dice the First Amendment. ( Fortunately, the
Supreme Court had a good day when it came up for review.... but YOUR
tax money was paying all the overhead and salary on that until the
Supreme Court shot it down; think about it... )
....<deletia>
Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
>
> Gharlene there are many adults who write fanfic not just kiddies.
>
No. "Fanfic" is a perverted form of kiddiefennery, and the calender
age of the arrested-development cases who engage in it is not at issue.
Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>
> By and large, if your ideas and writing are so good that you need to
> share them with the world, you should be working in your OWN universe,
> and sending the results in to editors who get paid to look at unsolicited
> submissions.... writing for free on the Net is the act of someone with
> no self-confidence, someone who does not value his work enough to do it
> in the expectation of compensation.
>
Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
>
> You do realize that you openned yourself up for flames with that last
> line. :)
>
Hardly. You've never seen me writing or posting "fan fiction" on the Net.
Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
>
> I would have to state that many people do it to share their enjoyment
> of a show. And why not?
>
Since your opinions exist in sublime ignorance of past court precedents,
and in a social vacuum that obviously doesn't care if the folks making
a TV series get hamstrung or crippled by some amateur typist who stumbles
on one of their major unaired plot developments, AND ESTABLISHES PRIORITY
by publishing a story involving trademarked and copyrighted material and
characters, without legal authorization to do so, my reaction is that you
should write and publish all the TrekkieCrud you like, and wait for the
Paramount lawyers to explain it to you.
THE FACT THAT YOU ENJOY A TV SHOW DOES NOT GENERATE ANY RIGHT TO MAKE
FREE WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY, NOR DOES IT GENERATE ANY OBLIGATION
ON THE PART OF THE PROPERTY'S OWNERS TO ALLOW YOU TO MAKE FREE WITH IT,
AND THEREBY DIMINISH THEIR OWN RIGHTS AND CLEAR OWNERSHIP.
Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>
> ( Again, I note some major exceptions to this cavalier disposition of the
> practice; there are some occasionally unutterably brilliant parodies
> appearing on the Net, and some pretty good stuff is out there, largely
> obscured by the surrounding plethora of rotting yak dung that poses as
> "creative" effort on the Net. )
>
Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
>
> Yes but that yak dung to you maybe wonderful to the fanfic writer.
> There are many fanfic stories that i dislike but i respect the fact
> that the writer believed that they had an idea and wanted to share
> it with everyone and if writing the story brings happiness to the
> writer - i am ok with that.
>
Since there tend to be very danged few "ideas" worthy of sharing, and
since there are appropriate LEGAL venues for this sort of thing, and
since, in point of fact, unauthorized use of someone else's copyrighted
and trademarked property in publication can be (and often is) charged
as felony copyright violation, the fact that you are "ok with that"
doesn't really have much impact on the universe, and have a nice day.
In other words, take the discussion over to "alt.trek.kiddie-fanfic,"
'cos you're making no headway here.
Dan Tropea
>
> Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
> >
> > Concerning "story ideas,"
> > This is why posting "fan fiction" in public-accessible venues like "News"
> > topics is the act of kiddies who don't care what they might do to their
> > favorite TV series. The best way to handle "fan fiction" is by
> > limited-subscription mailing lists, so that it's possible to show the
> > list of addressees, and demonstrate that the production staff had no
> > access to the material.
> >
>
> In <36659B...@cabletron.com>
> Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
> >
> > Yes but Gharlene you do realize that there are many fanfic newsgroups.
> > I believe Star Trek has 3 or 4. Xena has at least 2. Granted there
> > seems to be very few stories posted.
> >
>
> I see. "Everyone does it" makes it sensible? By this logic,
> ax murder is permissible, since lots of folks do it.
>
Wow Gharlene now there is a leap of logic - comparing murder with
fanfic.
> Note that Paramount largely ignored the "fan fiction" people for a
> decade or so, and then discovered when they put "TREK" back into
> production that they couldn't do a tremendous quantity of material
> for fear of lawsuit vulnerability; in fact, Paramount Legal sent over
> a memo to Goddenberry pointing out that so many "Vulcan" stories had
> been "fanficced" that it probably wasn't worth his time to try to come
> up with anything that he could do safely. This is one of the major
> reasons you saw so little of Vulcan and Vulcans in TNG. The idiots at
> Paramount are *still* fighting occasional rear-guard actions to assert
> ownership of various copyrights and trademarks they didn't defend
> properly when it appeared to them that "TREK" had no value. Toleration
> of fanfic constitutes a sort of defacto acknowledgement that they're
> abandoning rights to certain things, and there have been one or two
> cases where they had to go to a lot of hassle to establish ownership
> rights on their own corporate property.
>
It seems to me it would be very easy for them to shut down the alt
fanfic groups. They would just have to send a kill newsgroup command
through alt.config.
Then they can go after the mailing list providers with legal action.
It seems to me with Xena, Hercules, X-Files newsgroups fanfic along
with Star Trek that with these owners taking no real stand against
fanfic on ngs or mail lists that i have to wonder if these laws
aren't the equivalent to fanfic?
> The whole point of legal fumblydiddles is to STAY OUT OF COURT unless
> you have a good chance of winning something that's worth a lot more
> than your time and aggravation. Do you have any idea how much "fanfic"
> is worthy of a court defense, especially since it's largely unpublishable?
> In other words, asymptotic zero.
>
> Incidentally, fanfic was part of the discussion over the so-called
> "Communications Decency Act" that was passed by our socialist-
> authoritarian Congress, and signed into law by our constitution-hating
> "president." A number of Congresscritters who'd been well-funded by
> the entertainment industry saw a chance to establish more control over
> things that were an Inconvenience to their owners. Thus, was mass
> violation of U.S. copyright law used as one of the coffin nails in the
> attempt to slice and dice the First Amendment. ( Fortunately, the
> Supreme Court had a good day when it came up for review.... but YOUR
> tax money was paying all the overhead and salary on that until the
> Supreme Court shot it down; think about it... )
>
> ....<deletia>
I know i feel horrible each time i look at my paycheck and notice
how much the government takes.
>
> In <36659B...@cabletron.com>
> Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
> >
> > Gharlene there are many adults who write fanfic not just kiddies.
> >
>
> No. "Fanfic" is a perverted form of kiddiefennery, and the calender
> age of the arrested-development cases who engage in it is not at issue.
>
You have a point.
> Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
> >
> > By and large, if your ideas and writing are so good that you need to
> > share them with the world, you should be working in your OWN universe,
> > and sending the results in to editors who get paid to look at unsolicited
> > submissions.... writing for free on the Net is the act of someone with
> > no self-confidence, someone who does not value his work enough to do it
> > in the expectation of compensation.
> >
>
> In <36659B...@cabletron.com>
> Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
> >
> > You do realize that you openned yourself up for flames with that last
> > line. :)
> >
>
> Hardly. You've never seen me writing or posting "fan fiction" on the Net.
>
I rarely do it since well i stink at it. You are though correct people
who want to spend time writing creative works should create their own
Universes not just others.
> In <36659B...@cabletron.com>
> Dan Tropea <dtr...@cabletron.com> writes:
> >
> > I would have to state that many people do it to share their enjoyment
> > of a show. And why not?
> >
>
> Since your opinions exist in sublime ignorance of past court precedents,
> and in a social vacuum that obviously doesn't care if the folks making
> a TV series get hamstrung or crippled by some amateur typist who stumbles
> on one of their major unaired plot developments, AND ESTABLISHES PRIORITY
> by publishing a story involving trademarked and copyrighted material and
> characters, without legal authorization to do so, my reaction is that you
> should write and publish all the TrekkieCrud you like, and wait for the
> Paramount lawyers to explain it to you.
>
I think instead of the companies being so anal about it they should
accept it as a risk. Lets face it there is sheer enough speculation
on the newsgroups anyways about plot developments that it seems
almost inevitable someone is going to stumble onto the truth.
For example prior to SiL there was a very large thread dealing with
what will happen to Sheridan. One of those posters probably hit it
on the head what was going to happen. This wasn't even fanfic - just
speculation.
Where do you draw the line?
> THE FACT THAT YOU ENJOY A TV SHOW DOES NOT GENERATE ANY RIGHT TO MAKE
> FREE WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY, NOR DOES IT GENERATE ANY OBLIGATION
> ON THE PART OF THE PROPERTY'S OWNERS TO ALLOW YOU TO MAKE FREE WITH IT,
> AND THEREBY DIMINISH THEIR OWN RIGHTS AND CLEAR OWNERSHIP.
>
I am not arguing the legal issues. You are correct. I am just
stating that it seems to be the equivalent of blue laws since
no shows are enforcing people not to write fanfic.
I am also stating that specuation can be just in fact more dangerous
then fanfic.
Gharlene you really should fix the follow-up. With webtv its no
problem but outside its annoying. Please fix your software so
alt.dev.null isn't the automatic follow-up. I and most others
need to fix it.
Aaron Bergman
>Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>
>> Note that Paramount largely ignored the "fan fiction" people for a
>> decade or so, and then discovered when they put "TREK" back into
>> production that they couldn't do a tremendous quantity of material
>> for fear of lawsuit vulnerability; in fact, Paramount Legal sent over
>> a memo to Goddenberry pointing out that so many "Vulcan" stories had
>> been "fanficced" that it probably wasn't worth his time to try to come
>> up with anything that he could do safely. This is one of the major
>> reasons you saw so little of Vulcan and Vulcans in TNG. The idiots at
>> Paramount are *still* fighting occasional rear-guard actions to assert
>> ownership of various copyrights and trademarks they didn't defend
>> properly when it appeared to them that "TREK" had no value. Toleration
>> of fanfic constitutes a sort of defacto acknowledgement that they're
>> abandoning rights to certain things, and there have been one or two
>> cases where they had to go to a lot of hassle to establish ownership
>> rights on their own corporate property.
>>
>It seems to me it would be very easy for them to shut down the alt
>fanfic groups. They would just have to send a kill newsgroup command
>through alt.config.
>
>Then they can go after the mailing list providers with legal action.
>
>It seems to me with Xena, Hercules, X-Files newsgroups fanfic along
>with Star Trek that with these owners taking no real stand against
>fanfic on ngs or mail lists that i have to wonder if these laws
>aren't the equivalent to fanfic?
It's been done. Regardless of enforcement, fanfic of all types
not sanctioned by the owner of the copyright is illegal. It
doesn't matter if it's done for free. As long as it's distributed
to more than just a few personal friends, it is an infringement
of the rights of the copyright holder.
[...]
>
>I think instead of the companies being so anal about it they should
>accept it as a risk. Lets face it there is sheer enough speculation
>on the newsgroups anyways about plot developments that it seems
>almost inevitable someone is going to stumble onto the truth.
There's a story that Marion Bradley had to go through some
serious hoops to get a book published because, according to a
fan, it was reasonably similar to the story that the fan sent
Bradley.
Aaron
--
Aaron Bergman
<http://www.princeton.edu/~abergman/>
Phil Fraering
> In article <742520$5...@news.csus.edu>,
> ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) wrote:
> > ( Are you old enough to remember how one TV network cooked
> > up "THE ADDAMS FAMILY" and another network went into panic mode and
> > came up with "THE MUNSTERS" for the same season? or how one network
> > did "CAPTAIN NICE," and another did "MISTER TERRIFIC?" ) This is the
> > Way Of Hollywood; if someone else is doing something, it must be worth
> > doing, so Let's Do It First And Get It Released First, And Get All
> > The Money.
Actually, Gharlane, I'm not old enough to remember that, although having
seen both "The Munsters" and "The Addams Family," I am beginning to think the
creators of "The Munsters" didn't *understand* "The Addams Family."
> Wasn't the cheesier *Rocketship X-M* rushed to the screens in 1950
> to benefit from the publicity for the expensive and serious *Destination
> Moon*?
>
> See also my sigfile.
>
> Psst: I've got an idea for a movie: | Bill Higgins
> a colony of computer-generated ants | Fermi National
> saves the world from a falling asteroid. | Accelerator Laboratory
> Don't tell the competing producers! | hig...@fnal.fnal.gov
:-)
Glad to see you. I was about to send out search parties.
Gharlane of Eddore
aber...@princeton.edu (Aaron Bergman) writes:
>
....<deletia>
>
> There's a story that Marion Bradley had to go through some
> serious hoops to get a book published because, according to a
> fan, it was reasonably similar to the story that the fan sent
> Bradley.
>
It's not a story. You can get chapter, verse, and detail from the
archives on various websites. What happened, basically, is that
MZB has a clear memory of starting out, of her delight in other
folks' work, and her early occasionally imitative efforts. She's
always made it a point to welcome new writers into the milieux she's
created, and occasionally put together short story collections
of material contributed to her "Darkover" universe by new,
beginning, and experienced writers. Some of them were danged
good stories. Several of these collections are still in print,
and last I heard, she was still running her own magazine on the
side as well. ( I don't follow MZB and the "Greyhaven" crowd
all that closely, but I've enjoyed some of their work a lot. )
What happened, in brief, was that a fan sent in a story, and
MZB had already written a book with a similar plot-bit in it.
Always courteous, and trying to be fair to the wannabee, she
wrote and said she'd already done something like that, and
wanted the fan's clearance to go ahead with it. The fan's
husband was a lawyer, and he smelled free money; in wife's
behalf, he demanded co-writer credit (and presumably fifty
percent of the take; I don't have details on that. )
The refusal resulted in a threat of court action, and the
publisher declined to keep the book on the publication schedule,
since it's simply policy not to print and market a book when
there's a question about ownership. I've forgotten whether
she finally cleared the rights, or just rewrote the book
completely to leave out the similar elements; but the point
is, a book publication got shot down in mid-flight due to
merely the *threat* of a suit. ( This kind of thing could
torpedo the career of a writer less established than MZB,
since these days *one* bad book can keep you out of print
for years. )
And bear in mind that this was just a BOOK publication we're
talking about; there's a LOT more money involved in film and TV
production, and concomitantly, a great many more venal scumnoids
looking for an easy mark, and a good deal more justified paranoia.
lvi...@cas.org
According to Phil Fraering <p...@globalreach.net>:
:ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes:
:> Gee, how clever you are, to insure that this particular plot scenario
:> will never be used on the show, by publishing it on the Net.
:> Hasn't anyone ever *explained* to you about "story ideas?"
:> Now their legal department won't let them use that scenario, or one
:> even similar to it. Nice going.
:Everyone says this, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is still true.
Here's a thought exercise. For the next four weeks everyone post
every conceivable plot for every show you hate. By the above argument,
if it's true, then every tired show on TV will have to go off...
--
<URL: mailto:lvi...@cas.org> Quote: Saving the world before bedtime.
<*> O- <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/>
Unless explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting
should be construed as representing my employer's opinions.
lvi...@cas.org
:> submissions.... writing for free .......... is the act of someone with
:> no self-confidence, someone who does not value his work enough to do it
:> in the expectation of compensation.
Hmm - Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Moses, .... Yep, I guess that
theory holds water.
Podkayne Fries
>
>According to Phil Fraering <p...@globalreach.net>:
>:ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes:
>:> Gee, how clever you are, to insure that this particular plot scenario
>:> will never be used on the show, by publishing it on the Net.
>:>
>:> Hasn't anyone ever *explained* to you about "story ideas?"
>:>
>:> Now their legal department won't let them use that scenario, or one
>:> even similar to it. Nice going.
>:
>:Everyone says this, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is still true.
>
>Here's a thought exercise. For the next four weeks everyone post
>every conceivable plot for every show you hate. By the above argument,
>if it's true, then every tired show on TV will have to go off...
Won't work. In the full knowledge that Tracy Torme read alt.tv.sliders,
some of us posted different story ideas. The show *still* sucked. His
ideas were *much* worse than ours.
OTOH, that might explain why none of the sliders carry anything with
them ....
--
Regards, Podkayne Fries
"You can either see it as a removal of the weakminded from our group
or as the majestic Podkayne eagle swooping down on the lame minded
drooling rodent that infests the fields of the Usenet leaving various
sticky substances everywhere he wanders. Either way it is just another
of Nature's wonders. While it may seem cruel to the uninitiated, it is
necessary to prevent the pests from destroying it for the rest of us."
<896238577.8069.0...@news.demon.co.uk> - Mark Alan Evans
Klyfix
>
>:> submissions.... writing for free .......... is the act of someone with
>:> no self-confidence, someone who does not value his work enough to do it
>:> in the expectation of compensation.
>
>Hmm - Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Moses, .... Yep, I guess that
>theory holds water.
While I don't particularly agree with Gharlane on this issue, comparing fanfic
and other unpaid amateur writing to the works of people writing for important
causes is a wee bit much, don't you think? :)
V.S. Greene : kly...@aol.com : Boston, near Arkham...
Eckzylon: http://members.aol.com/klyfix/Page1.html
RPG and SF, predictions, philosophy, and other things.
Mods coming soon....
John VanSickle
>
> Most basic "story ideas" were beaten to death long before Shakespeare
> began recycling them; *however*, overt and callous appropriation of
> other folks' work in the form of developed characters, scenaria, or
> series formats ( think of the "DOORWAYS"/"SLIDERS" controversy, or
> the "BABYLON 5"/"DEEP SPACE NINE" situation ) happens often enough
> that there are a good many people who are willing to institute legal
> action. ( Are you old enough to remember how one TV network cooked
> up "THE ADDAMS FAMILY" and another network went into panic mode and
> came up with "THE MUNSTERS" for the same season? or how one network
> did "CAPTAIN NICE," and another did "MISTER TERRIFIC?" ) This is the
> Way Of Hollywood; if someone else is doing something, it must be worth
> doing, so Let's Do It First And Get It Released First, And Get All
> The Money.
"Imitation is the sincerest form of television." -- Fred Allen
Regards,
John
--
"Pardon me, boy--
Is that the lair of Great Cthulhu?"